


bringing up (time) baby

by coffeesuperhero



Series: Family Pond 'verse [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Babies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries to ask questions, but her mother does not speak Baby. It's a pity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bringing up (time) baby

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, BBC, and their various subsidiaries.  
>  **A/N** : Spoilers for everything current, just in case. This is baby!fic, and the timeline of this universe is wibbly wobbly.

Andromeda Brook Pond-Williams-Song, Brook to her family, Andromeda to the rest of the universe, and something-no-one-else-understands-in-Gallifreyan to her father (but only when she's done a particularly good impersonation of her mother or grandmother in terms of general stubbornness and/or ability to shoot a hat off someone's head) has a bit of an unorthodox upbringing, but then, with parents who flit about time and space like they're just dashing out for a quick run to the corner store, it was perhaps the only possible way for her to grow up.

There's a cottage on the beach of a planet somewhere in the Scarlet Junction, forty-fourth century. Her mother has enormous hair that is almost as fascinating as the stars outside her window, and every night when it is time for her to sleep, her mother tucks her into an ancient cot with stars of its own and tells her stories about her father.

She tries to ask questions, but her mother does not speak Baby. It's a pity. There are so many things she wants to know. Particularly she wants to know when it will be time for feeding again, but also she wonders where the other children are, and when they are, because it seems strange that the two of them are here all alone. And then sometimes her mother worries, and she wants to tell her not to. They will figure it all out together. She would like to say this, but it comes out as a coughy-laughy-sort of sound. Language can't be that terribly difficult, but it does seem to be something of a problem for her at this particular moment in her timestream. It's very frustrating.

She knows that she has very strong positive feelings for her mother-shaped person with her enormous hair and her stories about stars and time and running, and these are feelings that she thinks might possibly have a name, and that name might be love, but in Baby love is a long series of gurgles and shrieks that apparently do not translate well into any other language. Her father understands her when she talks, though. He feels more like her than her mother does, and this raises a whole series of questions that she can't appropriately articulate. "Why do you and I have a bivascular cardiopulmonary system whilst mummy does not," has no analog in Baby. This frustrates her, and then she cries, which frustrates her further, though it does seem to earn her a long spell in the arms of one or both of her parents, and that's soothing and sleepy and warm and definitely worth the tears she has to expend.

She likes it when her father visits. Her mother is not unhappy when he is away, but she is restless, and since they do not currently speak the same language, all they can really do with one another is stare or have long conversations at cross-purposes.

"I would like it if Father visited and we all had a nice adventure in the blue box that lives in all of time and space at once," she gurgles, in perfect Baby. Her mother blinks at her, and she stares back, wide-eyed and hopeful.

"I suppose it is a nice day for a walk," her mother says finally, in not-Baby.

She sighs.

It is a lovely day for a walk, though. Her mother was not wrong about that.

Her first word is "TARDIS," and her parents smile until it looks like their faces have frozen that way. She doesn't think that's possible, but it's troubling all the same. Her father assures her that everything is fine, and her mother's hair bounces around as she shakes her head and says, "I don't think you really do speak baby."

She waves her tiny arms at her mother indignantly and makes a mental note to explain, much later, that yes, _there is such a language_ , and no, _it isn't actually all that wonderful when that's all you speak and only one of your parents seems to have a clue, though thanks for all the milk and the bedtime stories, those were lovely_.

They travel in the TARDIS for a long while after that, leaving the cottage and the sea behind. Sometimes she misses the funny sound of the waves on the shore, but the TARDIS is big and warm and bright and feels almost like something she wants to call home. Her father shows her what all the levers do, and her mother follows along behind him, making small corrections as she goes. He asks where she would like to go first.

"Earth," she says, in not-Baby, and then her parents smile a lot again.

So do her grandparents, once her mother has landed the TARDIS in their yard. Her grandmother has hair that is the color of the sun on the planet with the beach and the cottage. She likes it. She doesn't have hair yet, but she would like it to look just like that, and she says so.

Her father dutifully relays this message to her family members. She must remember to thank him for all this translating.

"Only your daughter would kick up a fuss about being ginger," her grandmother says, and everyone laughs.

She laughs, too, though she doesn't know what's funny about wanting hair the color of a giant star. She tugs on her father's bow tie, the strange bit of fabric he keeps telling her is "cool," and requests an explanation. He kisses the top of her head and promises to explain later.

To her delight, her hair, when it finally arrives, after what seems like endless boring days of waiting, looks remarkably like her grandmother's. She stays with them sometimes when her parents have to go and do things that sound exciting and dangerous and fun.

"When you're older," her mother promises. She pouts, but it doesn't do any good. Neither does making demands. Her mother says that her father has already exhausted her patience with Time Lords who boss her about.

"Time is not the boss of me, and neither is the Doctor," her mother says.

She supposes this makes sense. Her father can be awfully bossy.

So she stays with her family and goes to the park with her grandmother and her aunt, Aurora, and people tell her grandmother that she has a lovely pair of redheaded daughters. She doesn't bother to correct them. It seems like a bad idea. She's seen the movies humans make about aliens, and they have some very strange notions.

"She's ginger, and I'm not," her father says later, when he comes back with her mother and the TARDIS. "The universe is a funny old place, Ponds."

The next few years are much more exciting. There's less boring lazing about in the cottage by the sea and more amazing sights and sounds and smells of the universe with her father and the TARDIS. She misses her mother, who is not around as often as she had been, which seems silly, because now they can finally talk to one another properly, as she has acquired more languages than Baby. Her father assures her that they will see her mother as often as possible, and they do, quite a lot, until one day they run into some angry-sounding aliens that say "Exterminate," more than is necessary and which she takes a rather instant dislike to, and after they've all gotten away safely her mother and father have a long conversation which she is not supposed to hear about her safety.

"I don't want to leave the TARDIS," she protests.

"I know you don't, my love," her mother replies. "It's not forever."

"It will feel like forever," she tells them, and her parents look at each other sadly.

"It might," her father agrees, kneeling down in front of her. "But it won't be. I promise."  



End file.
